Devices for intravaginally capturing and storing bodily fluid are commercially available and known in the literature. Intravaginal tampons for feminine hygiene are the most common example of such devices. Commercially available tampons are generally compressed cylindrical masses of absorbent fibers that may be contained by an absorbent or nonabsorbent cover layer.
The tampon is inserted into the human vagina and retained there for a time for the purpose of capturing and storing intravaginal bodily fluids, most commonly menstrual fluid. As intravaginal bodily fluid contacts the tampon, it should be absorbed and retained by the absorbent material of the tampon. After a time, the tampon and its retained fluid is removed and disposed, and if necessary, another tampon is inserted.
A drawback often encountered with commercially available tampons is the tendency toward premature failure, which may be defined as bodily fluid leakage from the vagina while the tampon is in place and before the tampon is completely saturated with the bodily fluid. The patent art typically describes a problem believed to occur that an unexpanded, compressed tampon is unable to immediately absorb fluid. Therefore, it presumes that premature leakage may occur when bodily fluid contacts a portion of the compressed tampon, and the fluid is not readily absorbed.
One way to prevent premature leakage from occurring is to provide designed pathways for fluid moving along the outer tampon surface. While this increase to the pathways may improve the fluid absorption, adding grooves during the manufacturing process can raise process issues. The prior art is replete with examples of attempts to incorporate grooves into tampons. Often new steps are added to an already complicated manufacturing process or the process is not fully described.
Friese et al., EP 0422660 B2, discloses an apparatus for producing a tampon with longitudinal grooves. The apparatus for making the tampon includes two groups of dies arranged in a plane perpendicular to the press axis. The first group of dies form press segments and the second group of dies form sliding plates. Each of the dies has press cutters projecting from the faces. The blank is pressed into a preform having a core with high compression and longitudinal ribs separated by grooves. The dies do not include a surface for forming shoulders.
Schoelling, US 2002-0151859 A1, discloses an apparatus for producing tampons having spirally shaped, pressed longitudinal grooves. The apparatus has press jaws of substantially equal dimensions which are arranged in a star formation with respect to the press axis. The jaws can be moved synchronously between open and closed positions. Each press jaw has a stepped pressing surface including a pressing blade and a pressing shoulder. The area of the pressing shoulder is great than the area of the pressing blade. The pressing blade and pressing shoulder can extend over a circumferential angle α of between 80 to 150° in the closed or pressing position. The press jaws are slightly retracted to give clearance when the preform is ejected from the press.
Van Ingelgem et al., EP 1547555 B1 purports to disclose an apparatus for manufacturing tampons with at least three press jaws, each press jaw having a penetrating segment for penetrating the absorbent material and pressing shoulder. The median of the penetrating segment diverges from the radius of that penetrating segment when in the press. The median of the penetrating segment is the straight line drawn in a cross section of the penetrating segment, through its tip and the midpoint of its base. One press jaw may comprise either a penetrating segment or a pressing shoulder, or a combination of one penetrating segment and pressing shoulders arranged at either or both sides of the penetrating segment. If the penetrating segment and pressing shoulders are fixed to separate press jaws, it is preferably that they press simultaneously. The press jaws, in particular, the penetrating segments can have a straight, sinusoidal, spiral or helical shape in the longitudinal direction to form essentially straight, sinusoidal, spiral, or helical grooves in the axial direction of the tampon. The resultant tampon has at least three ribs, in transverse cross-section, has a median at least partially diverging from the radius where the median of the rib is the line drawn through the midpoint of a series of arc lines, bound by the edges of the rib, wherein the arcs have a common center which is the midpoint of the X-X cross-section of the tampon.
Schmidt, EP 1459720 B1, purports to disclose increasing the surface area of a tampon by utilizing grooves that are formed in a wave shape. While multiple examples are shown, including wavy grooves with angled points, this publication does not disclose specifics on how to manufacture the tampons. In particular, the publication does not include specifics about compression, the press jaws or how the preform or tampon is ejected from the press.
Ruhlmann, WO 2009/129910 A1, purports to disclose a tampon having at least one first surface groove and at least one second surface groove that crosses the first surface groove along their path between a proximal end and a distal end of the tampon. However, the disclosure fails to teach how the crossing grooves are formed, especially in a commercially-feasible manufacturing process and/or with a cover.
Fung, US 2011-0092940 A1, discloses an intravaginal tampon formed of compressed material and has an outer surface with at least two segmented grooves are formed therein, and each segmented groove is separated from and spaced at a distance from an adjacent segmented groove. Each segmented groove has at least one substantially longitudinal segment and at least one accumulator segment. The arrangement of the segments provides a pooling region to impede bodily fluid flow along the outer surface of the tampon.
While the above examples describe tampons with grooves or the process for making such tampon, these tampons do not have visually distinct zones with different bodily fluid handling characteristics. In addition, the processes do not show how to make such a unique intravaginal tampon.
Further, the above examples fail to provide a tampon having intersecting longitudinal groove segments that penetrate deeply to provide fluid access into the absorbent structure and to provide column strength. Such penetrating grooves also provide a place into which to tuck or fold excess liquid permeable cover material resulting from tampon blank compression with a generally (non-stretchy) coverstock.